Welcome to the Dirt!
What stories do you hear these days? What stories do you tell? The word "story" stirs up images of animated storytellers by the fire and of novels cozily read on rainy Winter (or maybe summer!) nights. But we hear and tell stories constantly. The TV tells stories manifesting as commercials and "news" programs and sitcoms. Newspapers, magazines, the radio all tell stories. What is the story line that runs through your daily mind? Is it a story of wounds incurred during childhood, of sins committed and then redemption, of worthlessness alternating with grandiosity; is it a story of fear or of love? Is it a story of doom, of personal or societal collapse, or is it a story of as-yet-unseen possibilities? Ask yourself--what are the stories being told whether loud and brash, shiny and sexy, or subtle and whispered? What clothes do they wear? Do they come as themselves or disguised as something else?
And what stories do you hear about nature? Is nature a gift given to original man to be conserved or squandered? Is nature the temptress and store house of passions to be escaped upon death? Is nature for all its aliveness really controllable matter - spiritless and dead?
It is past time to look to some of the most ancient stories-for guidance, for inspiration, for an alternative to the morass of stories foisted upon us daily^?the stories thrown and tossed upon our backs, the stories that we conspire with by donning them, then forgetting who we really are, the stories cast under our feet like small pebbles causing us to lose our footing.
But ancientness isn't the brand for beauty or good-the story of Good vs. Evil, where it has become our job to pick sides, forego our sisters and brothers who don't pick our side and then vanquish the Other may have begun in ancient Persia with the prophet Zoraster. In this story the dark was no longer yin, but was bad, evil and to be eliminated. Light was no longer yang, but Good and Holy. And tradition cannot be blindly followed-folk tales can be laden with xenophobia. But the older stories can be a source for rejuvenation and an alternative to the corrosive, mechanical buzz of much of modern media, if we can transcend "isms" of tribe and nation. We must consider carefully the stories we eat.
The old Germanic peoples told stories about the primeval giant who was destroyed and his body was cast about. You can see it today. His skull became the heavens. His brain turned into clouds. His bones can be seen in the bare basalt of the Gorge. And his hair became the vast forests. People were created from the trees. So the trees are our kin.
The Tzutujil Maya tell multi-layered sagas. One of these tells about the beautiful, tall and radiant but disobedient daughter of the sun and the moon and how she falls in love with a short plain man. On one level it is about the personal psychology of adolescence. But on another level it is about the geography of highlands of Guatemala and how certain mountains got to be where the are. And on another level it is about the life cycle of water and how the daughter is fresh water and the short man is the sparkle of the light off the ocean and how all women are sisters of this tall girl and so how all women are water.
Stories like these light the imagination and their call resounds like a lion's roar in a deep canyon. They tell us that nature is family. Nature is holy and we are born from it and have a responsibility to it. We are nature. Classical Chinese medicine recognizes this-reminding me (thanks to Healer Will Wan for the inspiration) that I have the qualities of wood, fire, water, metal and earth all within me: Wood for the infinitely generative quality of nature; fire is the inner warmth of the Heart; water is adaptability and movement; metal is the clarity of the pure ringing of the bell and of the Zen master's sword that cuts through delusion; earth is rootedness, solidity and support.
We become the stories we listen to and tell. Some say we are made of songs (stories put to music) and that our singing recreates the world. What stories are you telling? What story are you living? What story are you becoming?
May today's Dirt! bring you powerful tools, materials, colored bits, relations, and all the makings for you to create a good story.
Blessings to all from Tim and the rest of the Dirt! Gang.
This summer, I am offering a weeklong aquatic macroinvertebrate biomonitoring workshop for educators. There are two possible dates: June 20 - 25 or July 11th - July 16th. The final date will be determined by demand. Participating schools will receive $500 dollars in equipment and field guides. The only costs associated with the course are room and board ($100) at the Opal Creek Education Center (we'll stay two nights there) and professional development credits. The only requirement for the workshop is that participants must have experience conducting macroinvertebrate biomonitoring with students.